Earlier quoted context omitted.
You missed maybe the most important thing: Allow cities for humans to be built. The American suburbia model is unhealthy on so many different levels. This only became apparent to me on my trips back stateside after living in Europe for a while.
Can you expand on that or provide an article please? Sounds interesting
Health care is turning into a consumer product
101–110 of 334 posts
Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product
#102[deleted]
Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
Predominantly (there's also general overall bureaucratic bloat with absurd numbers of administrators at all levels) . It's certainly not the majority of healthcare workers. Physicians are often scapegoated as responsible for healthcare costs when in reality physicians in Canada, New Zealand and Australia earn similar salaries without the massive cost blowout.
There can be instances where physicians are paid the same or more outside the US (I've heard family practice can pay better in Canada), but overall US physicians earn much more . https://www.physiciansweekly.com/how-do-us-physician-salarie...
It's worth noting the debt burden that different medical education systems place on physicians. Debt load and lost income are huge in the US medical education systems.
Many people that browse this forum will likely have lifetime income similar to that of a physician.
Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product
#104It's interesting to see that "Health care consumes 18% of GDP in America" compared to ~10% in most developed countries. In my (non-american) opinion part of that difference comes from the fact that healthcare is already a consumer product in the US. Maybe not entirely, but much more than in Europe, where universal healthcare sponsored by the state is the norm. Another point is that US healthcare is considered the mos…
I’m interested in this worst performing stat. By what measure? Because I’ve always read that when controlling for the relative poor health of the us population regarding diseases related to poor eating and exercise habits, the US was a top performer for heart and cancer treatments.
Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
The US government is involved in ways that make it inefficient. For example, I don't get to choose my insurance, the government has ensured that instead my company does for me. While I can in theory get insurance elsewhere I lose a large subsidy in doing so, no insurance I can buy can possibly be a better deal for me, even the company insurance is bad. The incentives for insurance are to ensure that I don't quit, not…
> the government has ensured that instead my company does for me. How does the government ensure that?
Tax law
Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product
#106What prevents someone from setting up an affordable healtcare plan, porentially with it’s own chain of hospitals? Other than the startup capital? As broken as the US healthcare system appears from the outside, the free market SHOULD have pushed prices down, not up.
> the free market This isn't. With the amount of lobbying, financial contributions to campaign funds, oligopoly, the market isn't free. This is also one of the market where you have to pay. You can choose to not go to vacations or not to buy an apartment (even if you live horribly); you cannot just not have an appendix operation or not fix your ankle if it is broken.
You definitely can choose not to have an appendix operation in many cases: https://www.facs.org/media/press-releases/2021/coda-study-10...
Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
You think it’s the c-suite reaping all the financial gains?
Predominantly (there's also general overall bureaucratic bloat with absurd numbers of administrators at all levels) . It's certainly not the majority of healthcare workers. Physicians are often scapegoated as responsible for healthcare costs when in reality physicians in Canada, New Zealand and Australia earn similar salaries without the massive cost blowout.
I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, but in Poland, physicians are genuinely a separate, well-organized labor class. As such, and I have not followed it as closely for a while, during last 'reform' what I heard was lip-service about patient care followed by implementation so bad that people actually opt for a private insurance ( if they can afford it ). If they are scapegoated, it is because they are part of the equation. Luckily for them ( and pharma for that matter ), they are the only part that is actually necessary.
Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product
#108It's interesting to see that "Health care consumes 18% of GDP in America" compared to ~10% in most developed countries. In my (non-american) opinion part of that difference comes from the fact that healthcare is already a consumer product in the US. Maybe not entirely, but much more than in Europe, where universal healthcare sponsored by the state is the norm. Another point is that US healthcare is considered the mos…
The problem is that "market" is a really bad fit for meeting healthcare needs, and doubly so when it's intermediated by insurers. People get the amount of healthcare they can afford from their discretionary budget and work their insurers for - not the amount they need. So they may get "more" (or at least more expensive) care than they need, or less. Note that many of the European systems are semi-private, so you reta…
In my book, it’s a big red flag when a market is intermediated by anyone. The whole point of markets is to crowd source decision making, so if you remove the crowd, then what is it that you actually have left?
Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product
#109It's interesting to see that "Health care consumes 18% of GDP in America" compared to ~10% in most developed countries. In my (non-american) opinion part of that difference comes from the fact that healthcare is already a consumer product in the US. Maybe not entirely, but much more than in Europe, where universal healthcare sponsored by the state is the norm. Another point is that US healthcare is considered the mos…
Another point is that US healthcare is considered the most expensive and worst-performing in terms of outcomes compared to the other developed countries. Not that your thesis isn't correct but be careful there. You're combining the cost of care for the people who get care with an average outcome that includes people who don't get care. The quality of care for Americans who can afford care is excellent.
> The quality of care for Americans who can afford care is excellent.
As a Canadian who knows many Americans, works for a US company and has extended US family, this is not quite true.
Most Americans "who can afford care", maximum 70%, have access to medical care that is on par with Canadian health care, but is fraught with peril; "booby traps" such as out of network costs, high co-pay fees that can bankrupt, surprise billing (though 2022 is starting to deal with that). Care may be excellent, but losing your house if you get cancer seems unnecessary.
A few percent of Americans (the rich and the very well insured; FANNG/MAMAA, investment bank employees, etc.) have access to the possibly best health care in the world.
20% of Americans are uninsured or under-insured and have access to the worst healthcare in the G20.
I think it's strange to want to only include the first two categories in the outcome calculation. Strange may not be the right word here ...
Re: Health care is turning into a consumer product
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is 100% obvious that amounts spent on the military in the U.S. today are insufficient and will have to go much, MUCH higher than they are today. Probably 5x higher - to the Cold War 10-12% levels - because of standoff with China and Russia at same time. It will still not be enough to win over China, but at least enough to keep the free world in existence. Otherwise democracy will be just simply gone from the world…
I encourage you to rethink this stance. https://worldbeyondwar.org/ - is an organization dedicated to the abolition of war. I encourage you and anyone reading this to take a look. Also take a look at possible alternatives. (A global security system that doesn't require violence) - there's an ebook discussing this system in full. https://worldbeyondwar.org/alternative/ Continuing to head in the direction of militarism…
Posts about permanently ending war are basically spam